I have a 2004 standard 3.0L V6 with 22,000miles on it. Recently the engine started ticking between 1100 and 1600 RPM whether the engine was warm or cold. I found the following service bulletin and brought it with me when I brought the car in for servicing on March 13th:

http://www.finishlineperformance.com.../docs/0010.pdf

When I came to pick up the car they infromed me that they also knocked off a couple of recall items that were not critical. The next day sure enough, not only was the ticking back but it was louder than before.

I brought the car back last Monday and the mechanic told me that they did not fix the ticking becasue it was most likely caused by carbon built up on a cyclinder head. He also mentioned that the service bulletin I brought in was definitely not the problem. He then suggested that I run some higher octane gas through it and take it on a lenghty highway run at high RPMs to burn off the carbon. He said that he didn't want to have to put me through a complete engine teardown just to clean out a bit of carbon. It sounded reasonable so I said that I would give it a shot.

This brings us to yesterday morning and my drive to work. Since I only had about 1/8 of a tank of regular left I decided to hold off on the high octane until it was gone but inthe meantime I was going to keep the revs up too. Halfway into the 15 min. drive the "check engine" light comes on. When I called the service shop they said not to worry because it likely just the carbon going through the system and be detected thus triggering the light. The mechanic said to bring the car in if the light stays on for more than a couple of days.

So this morning I fuelled up with the 91 octane and headed off to work...no change on the way there. The drive home was a little different. I started the car and the engine ran rough while the "check engine" light is was now flashing...a bad thing according to the manual. I nursed the car home with a rough/low idle and a lot of hesitation when accelerating through first and second gear. I am going to bring it in to the service shop in the morning to demand that they fix the bloody problem.

Has anyone had anything like this happen to their 6?

 

Man I feel bad everytime I hear a 6 having problems as if was a child of mine

Make sure , better , demand it ; that everything they specified you to do to it , is written in your Mazda's records in their computer and a copy to you . You don't want them to blame you are the cause of negligence to your car and then tell you its not covered by the warranty due to your negligence

Hope they find the issue , come back with good news , please

 

Speechless...I'm utterly speechless.

I dropped off the car this morning after the short drive from home to the dealer which now included a new metal on metal rattling noise. I left for work on the courtsey shuttle hoping for the best. This afternoon I got a call from the service gent and he infromed me that they were wrong and that it was much more serious than the previously diagnosed carbon buildup. They have to replace THE ENTIRE ENGINE ASSEMBLY!!

At this point they are still uncertain what exactly happened but one of the cyclinders defenitely stopped firing for some reason. The engine was beating itself up internally and in fact they said a few minutes after they brought it into the garage, blue smoke poured out of the exhaust. Apparently this is a very uncommon problem and new engine assemblies are on back order. It'll take something like two weeks before I get the car back...but only 2 or 3 days of that will be to drop the engine into it. <sigh!>

At the very least they set me up with a rental car...a Mazda 3 automatic that feels like a tin can compred to my 6.


ANYONE THAT HAS ANY TICKING/PINGING/CLICKING NOISE COMING FROM THE CYCLINDER AREA BEWARE! BRING THE CAR TO THE DEALER AND HAVE THEM DO A THOROUGH INSPECTION!!!!!

 

Seems like my problem is not an isolated case.

Check out this lengthy thread on another forum where a number of Mazda 6 owners have had their 3.0L V6's either rebuilt or replaced.

http://forum.mazda6club.com/index.ph...pic=47902&st=0


A recurring notion is that the engine seems to consume the oil. Unfortunately I can't confirm how much oil was in thecar when my problems started becaus ewhen I first brought it in to the dealer to address the ticking noise I also had them do an oil & filter change. You can bet I'll be constantly monitoring the oil consumption on the new engine!!!

 

Woe !!! This is scary ! I read all the thread

So far , mine is o.k. got the oil changed at the dealer last week for the first time since new almost 5 months/3,500 KM . The oil was still pale and the level was fine .

 

Here's another very noteworthy post in the other forum:

http://forum.mazda6club.com/index.php?showtopic=43344

It seems that a weak point of the vehicle is the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) valve. You will not know if it fails unless you check your oil weekly or bi-weekly to see if it has suddenly gone down. I'm starting to wonder whether it was this that failed on my car..still no word from the dealer. The post in the other thread describes the issues with this small and inexpensive part.

 

oh man, i changed my oil after 3500 miles the other day since the last oil change... almost a full quart of oil was missing when i went to check the dipstick.

 

Argh...now I'm starting to get scared!!! My engine has been making some weird noises lately (kinda like a clunking or a rattling noise...almost like something is loose) and now has a slight vibration when it idles... [&:] It's been making the noise for awhile now, but I was hoping that it would go away on it's own (I only have about 1,960 miles on it!!!)...but it's not... and after reading this thread, I got scared and made an appointment for it!! It's going in on Monday morning...so if anyone has any ideas or things I should make them look for, it would be GREATLY appreciated!!! (she's an '06 6i)... I'm going to cry if I'm going to be without my car for more than a day!!!

 

checked her today and she's fine .... ffeeewwwwiiiieee !!! I hope the top guys at Mazda are now conscious of this PCV valve issue and are doing something about it , after all these engine swaps [:-]

 

I think this is v6 related. Mine has always had a low level ticking at idle and very low revs.